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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 1886   View pdf image (33K)
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1886 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF MARYLAND [Dec. 6]

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hutchin-
son.

DELEGATE HUTCHINSON: That is
correct.

THE CHAIRMAN: Any further ques-
tions?

Delegate Clagett.

DELEGATE CLAGETT: Delegate Ryb-
czynski, I understand you have a number
of potential nineteen-year-olds. What are
their ages?

DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Well, sir,
1 will name you their ages if you want me
to. However, if I were truly selfish about
this, I would be voting for the sixteen,
would I not, Delegate Clagett?

Thank you for the question.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Harry Tay-
lor.

DELEGATE H. TAYLOR: Delegate
Rybczynski, you indicated that seven mem-
bers of the Committee came clown here and
voted for twenty-one on the first ballot,
and on the next ballot, and on the next
ballot, and never changed their position,
and even now the seven will vote for
twenty-one. I suspect that even after the
Convention decides this matter, they will
still be for twenty-one. My inquiry is this:
Do you not think this indicates the mental
inflexibility — (laughter) — that causes hung1
juries?

THE CHAIRMAN: Is that a question
designed for clarification?

DELEGATE H. TAYLOR: It is part of
the democratic system, I suppose. Of
course, that is why some of the committees
hang on to the four year system. They
will not change that.

THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any other
questions?

Delegate Byrnes.

DELEGATE BYRNES: You made a
very good point with your suggestion that
if we lower the voting age to nineteen as
sure as the day follows night there will
be great straining to reduce a number of
other legal ages, but you failed to suggest
to the Committee what evidence you have
that in the states where the voting age was
reduced such strains were produced, and
that legal ages were reduced as a conse-
quence of that action of reducing the
voting age. I wonder if you have such evi-
dence, and if you have it, you could sug-
gest what it is?

DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: My under-
standing is that the voting age is also the
age of majority in other states. For in-
stance, in Alaska it is nineteen, and in
Hawaii it is twenty. One follows the other.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Byrnes.

DELEGATE BYRNES: My question
was whether or not you had evidence that
the other legal ages, for example contracts
and marriage, were reduced in those four
states following reducing of the voting age. I take it your answer is no?

DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: No, that is
not my answer. I am a little fuzzy on that
right now, I have to admit. I will remind
you of this a year from now in the event
this goes through.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Byrnes.

DELEGATE BYRNES: Moving on then,
do you recall Mayor and Delegate Gullett's
appearance before our Committee?

DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Yes.

DELEGATE BYRNES: You made a
point that you personally fear that in the
future if we reduce the age there will be
great takeover in college towns, as you
call them, college counties. Do you recall
what Mayor Gullett suggested as a possi-
bility in College Park?

We asked him, if I may remind you —

DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: I just an-
swered that question for Delegate Hutchin-
son.

DELEGATE BYRNES: You did?
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Yes.

I might further remind you if we are
going to concentrate on what college people
say, I would like to remind you and every-
one else of what a Goucher student herself
said when she appeared before our Com-
mittee. She gave a very direct and pointed
piece of testimony, if you will remember:
I do not think I was ready to vote until
twenty-one and I am only ready to vote
now. There is a statement that goes around
college circles that freshmen coming in have
trouble adjusting, and then they start
learning, and everything, and by the time
they are sophomores they think they are
really great and they know everything. By
the time they are juniors, when they are
in their major, they start to doubt a little
bit and wonder, and by the time they are
seniors, they begin to know that they really
know very little about anything.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Byrnes.



 

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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 1886   View pdf image (33K)
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